Due to advances in technology and a changing political and economic environment many industries are being freed from the constraints of government regulation and controlled monopolies. In particular, utilities such as long distance telephone service, cable, and most recently electric utilities, are now entering a free-market environment. This market trend allows companies providing utility services to compete for customers.
Out of competition and the desire for increased profits, companies desiring greater market share are now calling potential customers in an effort to convince or entice these potential customers to switch service providers. For example, a telephone long-distance service provider may call individuals to entice them to switch companies for their long distance service. To entice the potential customer to change service provider, the service provider often offer discounted service or rebates for changing service. Switching long distance service providers simply involves informing the local service carrier of the appropriate long distance service provider to allocate the long distance trunk usage to and change the appropriate billing to reflect the new service provider. Often the long distance service provider seeking new customers will waive any customer fees usually charged in hopes of reaping increased profits in the future.
In the past, if the potential customer agreed to change long distance service providers they would simply respond in the affirmative during the telephone call and the new long-distance service provider would independently call the local telephone service provider to effectuate the change. While this method worked well for a time, increased competition and entry into the market by unscrupulous businesses caused some long distance companies to enter into a practice known as slamming. In general, slamming comprises switching a customer's long distance service provider without the customer's prior authorization. A long distance carrier could ‘slam’ a customer by falsely reporting to the local telephone service provider that the customer had authorized the change. The local service provider would change the service as instructed and the customer, without any knowledge, would receive service from this new long distance service provider. The customer must then pay the new rate, which is often higher, to the new long distance service provider or undertake the process of changing back to their old service provider, often incurring a fee. The customer, having been slammed, had no way to prove they had not ordered the change.
While this example is specific to the long distance telephone industry, other businesses are susceptible to similar practices. For example, the potential exists for slamming in industries such as cable television, electricity, and even local telephone service.
In response to the widespread practice of slamming, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted a requirements that before a customer is switch to a new long distance service provider third party verification must be obtained. Third party verification comprises verification by an entity independent from the long distance service provider.
Prior art methods of third party verification, while helpful to discourage slamming, suffers from several drawbacks. First, the process of third party verification is generally performed by independent live operators. Because the independent, third party live operators must be available when the calls are made to potential customers, the cost associated with advertising a new long distance service provider to a customer is increased because the additional labor costs associated with the additional live third party verification operators. This is especially true when numerous calls are simultaneously being made because numerous third party verifiers must be available to provide third party verification. Another disadvantage of using live operators is that the potential for fraud still exists in that only the word of the third party verifier supports the long distance service providers.
Of course, this is but one exemplary area where some form of independent verification would be helpful. Individuals today depend on telephones, computers and the Internet to conduct business that was previously conducted in person. For example, in the past a purchaser of a personal property item would have physically traveled to the store to purchase that item or met with the service provider to purchase a service. While the item may have been obtained on credit, the individual generally had to sign some form of credit agreement to thereby provide verification to the merchant of an obligation to pay the debit. The signature also verified receipt of the goods by the customer.
Due to the inconvenience of traveling to a merchant and the time constraints on individuals, the purchase of goods and/or services by telephone or Internet is becoming a more popular and widely adopted method of obtaining goods and/or services. The goods are shipped to directly to the customer and billed most often to a credit card. In the case of a service, the service is performed and the customer subsequently billed.
While this method of conducting business is convenient, it exposes the merchant or service provider to fraud. For example, after receiving the goods or service, certain dishonest customers have been known to deny that they ordered the goods or services. Conversely, certain dishonest merchants have been known to deliver unwanted goods, perform unwanted services and then subsequently bill for these unwanted goods and/or services, or even bill for services not performed. Because transactions are often performed via telephone or Internet, there is no way to verify that the customer actually ordered the goods or services. Hence, these types of transactions are subject to fraud.
Although the previously discussed examples involve the sale or goods or services, other situations beyond those of a commercial transaction may arise where some form of third party verification system may be beneficial. For example, various types of polling or petition drives could benefit from the convenience of being conducted by telephone or computer. However, previous attempts at such actions by telephone lacked reliability because of a lack of third party verification. Likewise, previous attempts were undesirably expensive because of the cost associated with live third party verification operators.
As discussed above, previous attempts at verifying an individuals decision, such as consent to purchase goods or services were inadequate for numerous reasons. One such inadequacy is that the obtained verification could not be independently confirmed beyond that of the third party verifier. Another reason previous attempts of verification were inadequate is because previous attempts, relying on live operators or verifiers, were prohibitively expensive. Yet another drawback of previous attempts involve the perpetration of fraud in the verification system because of collusion between the third party and the party hiring or controlling the third party.
Prior art attempts to provide some form of automated third party verification have several shortcomings. For example, some devices simply record the conversation with a potential customer or party on an analog tape. However, this type of system lacks means to retrieve the recording in a quick and convenient manner.
For the above mentioned reasons, a method is needed for providing rapid and inexpensive verification of a decision made by an individual located remote from the party requiring verification. It is preferred that the method and apparatus of verification have means for evidencing the agreement or consent of the party to others at a later time. Hence, the verification is preferably reproducible so that the verification can be provided to another at a later time.
Therefore, a need still exists for an automated third party verification system having the features and advantages described herein.